Effect of Epinephrine Pretreatment on Pentobarbital Sleeping Time of Mice with Altered Thyroid Status

Abstract

IN 1960, Conney and Garren¹ reported that thyroid pretreatment prolonged the sleeping time from hexobarbital in rats. Later, Prange et al.² found that in mice prior treatment with desiccated thyroid increased sleeping time and propylthiouracil decreased pentobarbital sleep time. Fonts³ recently reported a six-fold decrease in the ability of rat liver microsomes to metabolize hexo-barbital and chloropromazine when these animals were pretreated for three days with epinephrine (0.5 mg/kg every 12 h; 6 doses). In mice Ellinwood⁴ found analogous results in vivo with pentobarbital. Pentobarbital sleeping time was increased two-fold (P = 0.001) with epinephrine (0.5 mg/kg every 12 h; 6 doses) pretreatment, whereas a smaller dose of epinephrine (0.25 mg/kg) had no effect.